Faith in the ballot box

It would be easy to endlessly talk about the latest antics of Donald Trump. A lot of progressive blogs have several articles per day and Trump manages to give them an endless supply of things to write about. But I'll only mention three today.

Last week Trump made a bid for the black vote. You live in poverty. Your schools are no good. Your youth can't get jobs. Most of your men are in jail. Vote for me. What have you got to lose?

Laura Clawson of Daily Kos has a couple observations. First, Trump said this before a white audience. He didn't go to a black audience or meet with black leaders. Second, it gave his new campaign manager a really warm feeling.

Translation. A lot of voters, especially white women won't vote for Trump because he is so nasty to minorities. He is saying to these white voters, I'm not so bad after all.

Just keep in mind the kind of justices Trump will nominate.



Trump has been notable in not releasing his income tax statements. The last prez. candidate to not release was Richard Nixon. The New York Times tried to unravel Trump's financial maze and found the companies Trump owns have at least $650 million in debt. Successful billionaire businessman? Doesn't look that way.



With all Trump's talk about rigged elections it begins to sound like on the day after the election he will refuse to concede.

“If he loses, [he’ll say] ‘It’s a rigged election.’ If he wins, he’ll say it was rigged and he beat it. And that’s where this is headed no matter what the outcome is,” said one Trump ally. “If Donald Trump loses, he is going to point the finger at the media and the GOP establishment. I can’t really picture him giving a concession speech, whatever the final margin.”

Already only 38% of Trump supporters believe their votes will be counted accurately, only 49% of all voters believe the same.

Yes, he is threatening the election process, the foundation of democracy. He is threatening the entire political system. He's threatening the peaceful transition of power, which has been uninterrupted since 1797. We've never had a candidate question the outcome of a national vote.

After Trump destroys the faith of his supporters in the ballot box, how do we restore that faith? What if Trump then issues a call-to-arms? This could take a long time.